That is it - almost away...

 

With our last weekend at home all but over, life now switches into “get ready to go” mode. Most items on the “to do” list have been bowled over and the “to take” list has been constantly refined over the last month or two. Ros posted on the Cruise critic website that the best advice she had heard was “stack all the gear you intend to take and the cash you intend to take on the spare bed.  Halve the gear and double the cash and you’ll be about right”.  Good advice indeed.

The problem we have these days, is that whereas once upon a time, you basically took your air ticket, passport and wallet, a camera and a couple of rolls of film, your wash gear and your clothes, you now have to consider the various visas, electronic and otherwise; printed out boarding passes, hotel vouchers, shuttle bus vouchers/receipts and an itinerary.

But most important now are the electronic devices and all the accessories we take for granted.  All too easy to forget an item.

SLR camera and at least one lens – plus cable and battery charger.
Compact camera – plus spare battery and battery charger
Lap top computer – plus cable and transformer
4 way power bar so that all the above can be charged. Spare DVDs and CDs
Programme disc for Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 (OK, so not everyone needs this… I do.)
SD cards – several
USB drives
Kindle – plus cable
I don’t use one, but most will also be taking a mobile telephone and charger
Spare batteries for travel alarm

Bearing in mind that the airlines (or most of them) you are somewhat restricted to a 23kg limit – unless of course you are willing to pay for an extra bag or an upgrade - that means that as the electronics increase, so the number of clothes decreases!  Fortunately, by sticking to the same cruise line (Princess), we have climbed the loyalty ladder and the major perk is of course getting the laundry done for free!  We’ll probably still stick to lightweight easy wash shirts anyway.

So, Friday morning we get picked up at 5:30am – but as Sydney is a couple of hours behind us, that is in truth, 3.30am, so we have to be out of bed before 3am Sydney time.  A long day in store, but a good one, as we have our pre-cruise meet and greet at the Pyrmont Hotel at Darling Harbour.  Sadly, the monorail we used quite a lot in the past was decommissioned last week, which is a real  shame, as our hotel was almost alongside one of the stations.

Thirty “Dawn Nomads” all raring to go late Friday afternoon and some won’t be joining us on the Dawn Princess until Rome or Venice, late August, but great that they are making the effort to come along to the Pyrmont.

For future cruisers, we cannot stress too much that much of the enjoyment of the whole cruising experience was heightened by hooking into the “Cruise Critic” message board/roll call. In 2011, there were from memory, 85 Cruise Critic members (the “Crazy Cruisers”) but here we are just two years later, and the roll call is a staggering 156!  So my task was to print to out the name tags.  All done and checked, though cutting up the sheets with a Stanley knife and metal straight edge proved to be a real mission, as I couldn’t really hold the metal straight edge properly with my duff left hand – but at least I still have all my fingers.  I had to adjust Birdie's tag (above) as somehow or other, NZ wasn't on the map at all and Birdie was threatening to stay home...

So, next post – Sydney and the start of this adventure and hopefully, a more interesting blog, with pics! 

I’ll be concentrating on the ship-board life (and food…) and I’ll leave the History and Geography lessons to other bloggers.